Squirreled Away is a sweet game where you play as a squirrel! You can climb trees, jump and frolic just like our furry little friends. I had a good time with this demo!
The Back Story of Squirreled Away
Well, there isn’t much of a backstory!! I was a squirrel in a natural setting. That’s it! The game began with me appearing as a squirrel in a field. Soon, I met a giant turtle, who gave me a few quests, and the adventure began! There was a tutorial, but it was folded neatly into the beginning of the game. I was taught what I needed to learn as I needed to learn it. I like it when games don’t overload me with lots of complicated instructions. Squirreled Away got this just right!
The Gameplay of Squirreled Away
The Steam page recommended that I play the demo of Squirreled Away with a controller, which I did. It played flawlessly. My cute little squirrel can run, walk and jump just like a real squirrel. He could scare away birds, too, which was something different! He can also swim for a short period of time, but if he stays in the water too long, he passes out and wakes up at a meditation spot to recharge his energy. Nothing was lost; it was just a temporary reset. Nice and cozy!
The quests started pretty quickly, but they were not terribly difficult and were fun to achieve. When I completed a quest, there was victorious sounding music and a banner stating I’d completed the task. That was fun! There was even a great journal detailing my inventory, crafting recipes, quests, collectables, and settings. I always appreciate journals like this to keep me on track.
Squirreled Away is an open-world 3D game and has a lovely, quiet soundtrack. There is no day-night cycle, no timers, nothing that takes away from the cozy vibe of the game. The right joystick controls a very effective camera. Everything just worked well with this game! It can also be played with friends in multiplayer mode. And for some extra fun, the full game has both an adventure mode and a creative mode.
In adventure mode, you complete quests and progress in the usual way. In creative mode, you can just build what you want, when you want. It sounds like there are a lot of gameplay options in the full version of Squirreled Away.
As a squirrel, I was able to climb trees, of course! I was also able to make myself fall down to the ground, but I did not get hurt doing that. If I were careful, I could jump from one tree to another. In the trees, I found resin, twigs and acorns. There were also special golden acorns for me to find. When I found them, I got the same style of congratulatory music and banner!
Some Interesting Things in Squirreled Away
I could press my left trigger to highlight where the other squirrels were, as well as my quest items. I found that very helpful!! I also loved how my quests were in the top right corner of my screen, too, to remind me of what I was working on.
When I viewed the other squirrels’ locations, their distance from me was measured in paws! Ha!! And the sound the other squirrels made when they spoke to me reminded me of the Chipmunks, a cartoon from quite a few years back. Ha again!!
As in many games, there was a progression of tools that I made using items I found. What was funny in this game was the idea of a squirrel climbing up a tree and using a small squirrel-sized axe to cut branches! Ha. I will also have a small squirrel-sized axe to break up rocks as the game progresses. What silliness!
Sometimes getting where I needed to be was tricky. For example, at one point, I had completed a quest and had to return to a certain squirrel to turn it in. From my perch in a tree, I could see the squirrel, but actually getting to him was quite a challenge! There was a large valley separating us so I had to take the long way. I ended up stuck in a valley of boulders, but I did manage to find my way out after a bit. I can imagine that sometimes it’s easier to jump from tree to tree, which would be neat. In this case, that did not work for me. All in all, though, I think this is an interesting type of challenge to face.
Final Thoughts
The full version of Squirreled Away was released in March of 2025 and was very well received. However, in September of 2025, it was announced that the studio, Far Seas, was closing down. That was because the studio that was supporting them could no longer fund them. The devs have no hard feelings about this and are grateful for the support and experience they received in creating this game. What does this mean for you? It seems that there will be no future updates to the game or fixes.
However, the game currently has a lot of very positive reviews on Steam and Discord, so it seems fixes are not really needed. I noticed in the demo there was an “unstuck” button, so in the unlikely event your squirrel gets stuck, you can release him. I would not hesitate to purchase the full game because it seems that it was very polished when it was released. One of the devs is even still replying to messages on Discord. So if you’ve played the demo of Squirreled Away and loved it, you can confidently purchase the full game. Your demo progress will even carry over. I hope you enjoy the demo as much as I did!
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